Matt Haywood keen to continue maintaining standard that has served Leeds Knights so well

Handing Kieran Brown the captaincy two summers ago was questioned by many people, but it has proved to be a masterstroke of head coach Ryan Aldridge’s reign, given the subsequent development of the talismanic forward, both on and off the ice.

Given his ‘veteran’ status, Haywood was always a shoo-in for an ‘A’ last season, a status he shared with defenceman Jordan Griffin and netminder Sam Gospel.

But the 32-year-old centre believes the leadership gene runs throughout the entire Knights line-up, a quality that has been a major factor in the team’s success over the past two years.

Having agreed to a third season with the Knights - announced on Thursday by the two-time NIHL National champions - Haywood is excited by the challenge of clinching a third regular season crown.

He believes the chances of that happening are enhanced by the sense of collective responsibility that has developed on the Knights’ roster.

“We’ve got a team full of leaders,” said Doncaster-born Haywood. “I guarantee that within the next 10 years or so, even if they are not at Leeds, they will all be leaders in their own right, they’ll be wearing letters wherever they are playing, they are just those sort of guys.

“I just hope they understand and remember how special it has been to have a group like this - it doesn’t happen very often.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to preach since I’ve been here, that you don’t normally get teams where everyone gets on as well as we all do. It’s a special thing.

“During the season there are always lots of ups and downs, but if you’ve got a good team around you - and we have that here - then the downs are a lot easier to deal with.”

When he made the big decision to end his 12-year association with Glasgow Clan in the summer of 2022, Haywood headed to West Yorkshire unsure of what the future held.

Working for owner Steve Nell and head coach Aldridge, he knew there were ambitions to secure silverware sooner rather than later.

Just a few weeks into the 2022-23 campaign, it became clear that ambition could be realised quicker than anybody - inside and outside the organisation - had anticipated.

The league and play-off double that came was no easy achievement but Haywood took as much, if not more satisfaction from the Knights’ ability to retain the regular season crown 12 months later.

It was only the width of a post in Coventry in late April that denied them the chance to secure a second successive play-off title, too.

Is a third season of silverware too much to expect?

“We’re a very good group for not listening to outside pressure,” said Haywood. “What we did learn, especially in that first year, is something that we’ve been preaching and advocating ever since - that is we run our own race.

“Any pressure we feel is the pressure we put on ourselves and that’s maybe one of the reasons why we have been so consistent - we feel like we have a standard that we have to keep to.

“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing against, or if we’re on a three-in-three, or we’ve just got 10 bodies or whatever, we won’t accept anything less than that standard and that is what has helped carry us through. Hopefully it will do again.”